


sticks and stones may break

by kaermorons



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Dynamics, Humiliation, Kaer Morons, Multi, Punishment, Vesemir is Done with this shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:13:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26800453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaermorons/pseuds/kaermorons
Summary: The boys fuck up and leave Vesemir in no other position than to punish them. He knows it's not with his hands that would do them the most damage.Written for Kinktober Day 5: Humiliation/Degradation
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert & Vesemir, Eskel/Lambert/Vesemir/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 22
Kudos: 61
Collections: Witcher Kinktober Ring





	sticks and stones may break

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second work of 10 for this year's Kinktober, which I'm sharing with my awesome friends [fishie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_about_the_fish/pseuds/what_about_the_fish) and [anarchycox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/AC-DD) (link to her kinktober pseud). Make sure to keep an eye on the collection this fic is in for all of our updates!
> 
> See you Thursday.

The moment they walk out of the gates at springtime, they are Witchers. They are Geralt, the feared White Wolf, the Butcher of Blaviken, a friend of humanity, and all the rest the songs say about him. They are Lambert, the Fiend Bomber, who can brave being swallowed by a selkimore and live to tell the tale long enough to do it again. They are Eskel, the Dragon of Kaer Morhen, whose magic is known to be whispered in the halls of Aretuza and Ban Ard, whose ferociousness is matched edge-for-edge by his blade. They make Vesemir proud, hearing of their accomplishments all winter and giving them the praise they so enjoy.

But in wintertime, they are not Witchers. They are his boys, they hardly have names, and that’s just the way they like it. He sets them schedules. He gives them structure. He gives praise and rewards and punishment. He has expectations that are expected to be met and adhered to.

But they’re just boys. They fuck up. It’s natural.

To err is human, and to err so considerably they get put in the position they’re in now is Witcher.

Individual fuck-ups are met with individual punishments, in private, away from curious eyes and ears of those wanting to rubberneck on the proceedings. They don’t talk about anyone else’s fuck-ups but their own.

Except sometimes Vesemir has to scold all three of them at once, and to be entirely fair, this is a fuck-up worthy of group punishment.

They’re sitting on their knees, three in a line on the cold stone floor before Vesemir, kneeling but not sitting back, as this is a punishment. Their hands rest behind their backs, one wrist held by the other’s hand. It’s a position they all know well from their days of training, in this very hall, in fact, but it’s not a beating they fear, that they expect.

The silence Vesemir’s kept on the matter has been the most punishing part of this entire thing. They’ve been like this for almost an hour, with the old swordmaster pacing back and forth in front of them. Occasionally, their urges to speak are squashed when Vesemir looks over at them and scoffs at whatever he sees. It’s breaking them all down, seeing the disappointment in his eyes, the disgust in his tone.

“We’re sorry,” Eskel chokes out, the dismay cutting him sharper and deeper than he’d expected. Vesemir whirls on him and cuts off the rest of his apology with a glare.

_ Now, _ he begins shouting.

And here’s the thing: Vesemir has lived in Kaer Morhen longer than the three of them have been walking the Path. He knows this old castle like the back of his hand and blind. He knows precisely the spot to put them so that when he does speak, the noise carries across the entire keep and is sure to echo for long minutes. He knows the unease that comes from the empty great hall, and the greater apprehension from facing away from all that vastness. He knows this is going to hurt their ears and their hearts, but it must be done. 

“You’re  _ sorry?” _ Vesemir roars. The three of them flinch back a bit. “You had jobs to do. You had specific instructions; I did not endeavor to  _ confuse _ you with the chores I set out. Nowhere in that list of tasks did I tell you to  _ fuck off in the barn and let a godsdamned warg pack wander in through the gates of Kaer Morhen like they owned the place!” _

His voice carries through the entire hall and rattles the glass still left in the tall windows. Even the stones reverberate under the noise, and were Vesemir just a little more incandescent with rage, their medallions would have started to hum against their chests. “Literally fucking off. You went and got your dicks wet while I,” Vesemir glared at each of them. “Had to defend our home.”

“You think winter is just a time for you to come your brains out before you go and find them again on the path? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the only reason you come home, just to get your rocks off and not have to pay for it. Well, you’re paying for it now! You left one of your own; you left  _ one Witcher _ in a  _ keep of Witchers _ to fend for himself alone. And I almost lost my  _ fucking _ arm as a result of your  _ fucking _ incompetence!”

He paces again, catching his breath between angry snarls. “Were your medallions all vibrating? I bet you couldn’t tell. You were too busy thinking with your  _ cocks _ to feel them. You  _ fools. _ I have raised  _ fools.” _

He isn’t done.

“You all had chores in the courtyard. The very courtyard  _ seven winter wargs got into. _ Geralt!” The man cringes at the shout of his name, usually said in such a soft tone, quiet and gentle with praise. Now, it’s said with icy anger in the syllables. “You were supposed to repair the outer wall, with the stones I dragged out there from the north tower  _ all fucking summer long. _ Now it’ll have to wait, and we’re kept more vulnerable as the snows come in. Eskel!” The three flinch again. “If you had  _ repaired the training area, _ you could have gotten Geralt’s chore done faster. Now we’re left with last year’s damage  _ and _ whatever the wargs did to it. And Lambert,” the angered whisper he says his last boy’s name with is a bright contrast to the rest, and they feel their insides churn in anticipation. “You were supposed to be working on the godsdamned gate that  _ started _ it all. Half our fucking livestock are  _ dead _ because of all of your inattention, your  _ astounding _ lack of awareness, your  _ disappointment _ to every Witcher who wears the wolf’s head of Kaer Morhen around their throats! Your necks are not even worthy enough to bear my  _ hands.” _

“I’m sorry,” they all choke out at once, distressed. Vesemir curls his hands into fists and smooths his face into cold neutrality, cold as the stones they kneel upon.

“I will not be accepting your  _ words _ as an adequate apology. I should hope you wouldn’t think I would raise a hand to you and expect results since none of what the teachers who  _ died _ to teach you seemed to stick in your thick! Skulls!”

He throws his fist at the table behind them, cracking it in two, the splintering noises echoing as his voice had - angered and violent. “I honestly believe you three are no worse than you were when I brought you all here as children. You care for  _ no one _ but yourselves, and there’s not even a  _ scrap _ of honor, or duty, or obedience, or worth among any of you. Get on your faces.”

The three move in unison and lay facedown on the floor, hands still behind their backs. “I am  _ so _ disappointed in you. Were I a more prideful man, I would have fallen on my own sword for raising three imbeciles like you. This is your  _ home. Not _ many Witchers can say that anymore. Yes, it’s where the world dumped you off, but who picked you up? It’s where you were remade, but who kept you safe? It’s where you lost friends, lost family, but why are you still here? It’s your home. It’s where we are safe from monsters and men alike. To be attacked like we were is not the same as the siege forty years ago. But it would have been one-quarter of the Wolf school dead once more. Because you got  _ complacent. _ Am I the only one with eyes here?! Do I need to spell it out for you like you’re six years old and learning your letters!?

“The outer wall needed reinforcement because that same warg pack has been testing my patience all summer long, and I would have  _ died _ a bloody and painful death had I gone out to take care of it on my own. Summer wargs would have been able to break through the wall, and that’s why I entrusted that task to  _ you, _ Geralt. 

“The training ring needed to be in top shape because if there is one thing that kills a Witcher faster than their stupidity, it’s slacking off on their training. How can I hope for you three to come home  _ alive _ on the road when I knew I sent you back into the world undertrained, underprepared, not ready for the monsters  _ we _ train for, Eskel!

“And the gate. I was giving you a chance to make up for your own  _ sloppy _ mistake with Signs,  _ Lambert, _ because it was  _ your _ Aard that brought the fucking last barrier down between us and a world that wants us dead! Every day! And lo and behold, with a wide gaping hole in the wall, seven wargs came in before nightfall.

“You’re worthless! Useless! You don’t listen, and they should have cut your  _ ears _ off in the Trials for all the good they do now! The worst three the siege could have kept alive, you are worth nothing more than your place on the ground, sniffing dust and dirt. If the snow hadn’t blocked the passes, I would have thrown you off the fucking Killer the second I found you three  _ fucking off _ while I had to defend the entire castle, armorless.”

He ends his tirade abruptly when he hears a noise he hadn’t heard in literal decades, not since a boy hardened into a trainee, a rite they all had gone through.

It’s the sound of Lambert crying.

It starts as small sniffles, but the longer they sit in silence, the more embarrassment channels up through Lambert’s body, and it turns into quiet weeping, the scent of his shame and distraught sorrow drenching the room. It causes a chain reaction, Eskel and Geralt bursting out with sobs of their own, crying into the dirty floor.

Vesemir’s chest tightens. His nerves are silver and steel, and he’s made of the tougher stuff, he has to be for his boys. He knows this is hurting them beyond any injury they’d been dealt in the past. It breaks his heart to even see them like this, grown men, almost a century old apiece, weeping into the floor for disappointing their father. Lambert’s almost wailing at this point, and Eskel is practically screaming into the floor. Geralt is at least  _ trying _ to keep it together, his nails leaving bruising marks in his wrist while the other hand is curled in a balled fist so tight his hand trembles. Geralt of Rivia, with trembling hands.

The sight is too much to look at, but Vesemir knows he’ll have to dig himself out of this mess that he’s created. “You will sleep in the great hall, on the stones, until the chores I’ve given you are done,” he says, keeping his voice quiet so that they’ll soften their crying enough to listen. “When I am satisfied with the job you three have done, we will sit down and talk about this, but for right now, I cannot look at you another moment without choking on my own shame.”

He walks to his room, keeping even steps, and the moment the enchantment falls into place, silencing the area, he lets out a heart-wrenching scream to the gods. He does not destroy his room, he does not break his things, but he does manage to decimate a keg of brandy he’d been saving for those coldest winter nights.

In the morning, the chores are done. The wall looks better than Vesemir ever remembers it being, the mortar pastes still drying between the smaller stones, but there’s a mastery to it that fills his broken heart with pride. The training area is completely fixed, the dummies lined up and waiting to be fought, the training swords dulled with as much care that a sharp blade would get on the Path. It’s been swept, the warg-battered fences rebuilt, and not a piece out of place. Even the targets for ranged weapons have been re-canvased and stuffed full again. The gate, where it had been sitting bent and open the day before, is strong, flat, and even where it stood, keeping the world out.

The warg bodies are gone. The stones where they had bled out by Vesemir’s sword have been white-washed and covered with hay again like nothing had happened.

The stables and coops where the dead livestock had been at sunset are solemn and repaired under the sunrise. A trembling little goat kid pokes its head out of the hutch, worried about seeing more monsters. The horses had all been taken care of, fed and watered and brushed down, their stalls mucked, even reshoed.

It looks like how it does in the summer.

It looks so fucking lonely.

Vesemir half-expects not to see Roach or Scorpion in the stables, that their masters had led them out, but they’re there, giving him wary looks. “I know, I’d leave me, too.”

He spends some time in the winter sunlight, a small break between the clouds that makes him wonder if his boys will ever forgive him, if they’ll even stand to look at him after this. It’s self-loathing that fuels his curiosity to know the answer to that, and it’s that curiosity that walks him into the great hall.

It’s been tidied. There are no cobwebs in the rafters. The windows that had broken glass in them have been boarded up and insulated with tapestries. The great hearth they spent their evenings around is clean of soot and ash, a fire roaring in its mouth. The rugs have been beaten and washed, colors Vesemir hasn’t seen in years coming out in the design. The tables have been lacquered and cleaned. Their workstations have been organized and dusted. The floors have been swept and scrubbed. It takes him a few long minutes of just  _ staring  _ to see them, and... _ oh. _

He’s poleaxed to see his boys laying prostrate, where he’d left them the evening prior. It steals the breath from his lungs to see them not in the manner his saddened mind had provided: waiting with swords drawn, informing him of their plans never to return to Kaer Morhen again. They would leave his disgraced body on the mountaintop and leave. He would become a ghost and would haunt these empty halls as long as time went on.

But they weren’t doing that. The care that had been shown in their chores, the attention to detail and righting of wrongs in the entire blasted courtyard, that showed something else than a snap decision to leave. That the remaining goat hadn’t died of shock when they’d taken care of the carnage showed that one of them had probably held it close to comfort it, even though they were uncomforted themselves.  _ He _ had left them.  _ He _ had been the one to abandon them when they needed him to be strong. Seeing them face-down on the floor stands as the starkest reminder of his failure as a teacher, as a brother-in-arms, as a caretaker, as their only father. He covers his face from the sight like a child scared of the wind.

He doesn’t even realize he’s shaking with the force of holding back tears until gentle hands are pulling him to the hearth, guiding him down in a chair like a recently-made widow, distraught with loss. There’s a blanket put over his shoulders, and a mug of warm, spiced wine pressed into his hands, forcing them off his face.

His boys look concerned. There’s not a hint of wariness or shyness from being this close to him, from taking care of him. Geralt’s kneeling before him, running his hands over his thighs and squeezing,  _ encouraging circulation, should I go into shock, _ Vesemir’s mind supplies. The blanket and warm drink were also evidence of their thought processes. They’d cleaned up themselves, as well. Their lazy winter facial hair had been shaved off with precision and attention, their hair and bodies scrubbed. Even their clothes look cleaner, despite them lying on the floor when he came in. Gods, but they’re so handsome, and Vesemir hopes to remember them like this when they let him down easy.

But that shoe never drops.

Little by little, they coax him into sharing why he had reacted as he did. They all sit at his feet, looking up at him with wide eyes full of trust, and he could hardly believe it was unbroken even now.

“You gave us a punishment we’d remember. You were right; we weren’t going to see the breadth of our actions by a spanking in your room. You needed to wake us up to the fact that we’re still Witchers, we’re still responsible, no matter what happens within these walls,” Lambert says, surprising him.

“We were upset that we had disappointed you, yes, but we know you don’t love us any less than before. It’s why you didn’t try and kill us when you found out what had happened, it’s why you were honest about how you felt instead of coddling us, encouraging bad behavior,” Eskel adds.

“And we still love you, Vesemir. You don’t even breathe if it’s not in service to us.” Geralt looks up at him through wide eyes. “We hope we made things right in the courtyard, and we know the taste of your disappointment, and don’t want to know it twice. I’m sorry, Vesemir.”

“I’m sorry, Vesemir.”

“I’m sorry, Vesemir.”

“Boys,” Vesemir says, choking up as he reaches out for them. “I don’t deserve you. A selfish part of me hopes I can fool you all into staying with a broken old man like me. You’re more than forgiven. Thank you for opening my eyes again.”

The three manage to pull Vesemir down onto the furs and rugs, cuddling up close in his arms again.

“You were wrong about one thing, though,” Eskel says thoughtfully.

“What’s that, my boy?”

“It’s not this old pile of sticks and stones that’s home. It’s us.”

“You know, I think you’re right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Literally I know it's not sexy but bear with me. Come cry to me on my [tumblr](https://kaermorons.tumblr.com/).


End file.
